


words fail

by elizaham8957



Series: Tumblr prompts [5]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Missing Scene, aka the funeral WE DESERVED TO SEE, anyways I hope I did this right, it hurts my heart too much, post 3b, this is the first and probably last time I'm ever writing angst so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-21 04:05:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11935953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizaham8957/pseuds/elizaham8957
Summary: Lydia’s beginning to wonder if she’ll ever stop feeling numb.At one point, she figures, the walls that are keeping it all at bay are going to succumb to the weight of everything built up behind them andsnap,and she’s going to crumple with the sudden, overwhelming weight of grief and guilt and loss. Because she’s grieving, and she feels guilty, and she’s still reeling from losing her best friend, but— it doesn’t seemrealyet. It still feels like some sick dream that she’s going to wake up from, and Allison is going to bealive,lounging across the foot of her bed as they work on homework or solve mysteries orsomething.But she’snotalive, Lydia knows. Allison is dead, and soon it’s going to sink in, and she’s going to be crushed all over again.But right now— now, Lydia just feels numb.





	words fail

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I wrote angst and I'm never doing this again. 
> 
> Again, written for a tumblr prompt: this one was "things you said too quietly." I'm stilesssolo on tumblr and I'm still taking them if you want to submit one! 
> 
> Title's from Dear Evan Hansen again because my favorite pastime is listening to that show and crying. Enjoy!

Lydia’s beginning to wonder if she’ll ever stop feeling numb.

At one point, she figures, the walls that are keeping it all at bay are going to succumb to the weight of everything built up behind them and _snap,_ and she’s going to crumple with the sudden, overwhelming weight of grief and guilt and loss. Because she’s grieving, and she feels guilty, and she’s still reeling from losing her best friend, but— it doesn’t seem _real_ yet. It still feels like some sick dream that she’s going to wake up from, and Allison is going to be _alive,_ lounging across the foot of her bed as they work on homework or solve mysteries or _something._ But she’s _not_ alive, Lydia knows. Allison is dead, and soon it’s going to sink in, and she’s going to be crushed all over again.

But right now— now, Lydia just feels numb.

She felt numb all afternoon, as she sat through her best friend’s funeral, not one tear leaving her eye. Scott, on the other hand, has been quietly sobbing all day, eyes red and raw, because he’s always loved so openly and so powerfully, and Lydia doesn’t think he’s capable of bottling up his grief like she’s doing. They’ve barely seen Isaac, who sat through the funeral with blank, glassy eyes, and Kira’s shed a tear or two for a girl she only just knew, but Lydia— Lydia is still inexplicably numb. She’s terrified of the moment that her walls will crumble and the floodgates will open, dreading the second when it finally hits her that her best friend is gone, that she’ll never hear her voice or see her smile or listen to her laugh ever again.

And then there’s Stiles.

His face is still too pale, purple shadows still under his eyes, and he looks better than he did right when they got the nogitsune out of him, but it still seems like he hasn’t slept in a month. Lydia thinks he probably hasn’t. He doesn’t cry during the funeral; instead, he sits uncharacteristically still, his eyes empty and haunted, and his nervous, twitching fingers the only part of him moving.

She wants to say something, wants to help him, because she knows he feels responsible for this— Scott told her that he’s blaming himself— but she doesn’t know what to do. Can’t think of what to say to possibly make this better.

Selfishly, she wants him to be there for her. She wants him to hold her like he did that night they defeated the nogitsune, wrap his arms around her like he did when Aiden died. She wants to be _with_ him, help him heal and lean on him, because ever since she kissed him on that locker room floor, saw his eyes shine golden in the sunlight streaming in behind them, heard him tell her she was _smart_ instead of beautiful or something else superficial— since then, it seems like everything’s changed. And after two months of worrying and searching and fighting for him to return to them, trying to figure out how to get the nogitsune out of him— Lydia’s come dangerously close to losing him multiple times, and she doesn’t want to go through that. Especially now, after… _Allison._

She’d really thought that he would want that too, after he spent the night they defeated the nogitsune clinging to her like his life depended on it. But now he’s distant and somber and quiet, unlike the Stiles she knows at all, and she doesn’t know how to fix it. He's giving her space, but she doesn’t _want_ space, and she doesn’t know how to tell him.

It’s _destroying_ her, slowly but surely.

The weather seems to be on the same page as all of them— the sky is grey and dismal, and the breeze is cold, like the first wind of winter. Lydia shivers in her black coat, her heels sinking into the grass. She can’t really bring herself to care about the state of her shoes right now, with Allison’s casket in front of them. Everyone else had rejoined the funeral procession, gone back to the function hall to grieve together, but Allison’s friends— her _pack,_ Lydia corrects herself— they’ve all remained. Scott is crying again, tears silently running down his face, one hand resting on the smooth, dark wood of the coffin. It’s decorated with an enormous, beautiful spread of lilies, and the sweet scent of them is sickening to Lydia— she swears she’s never going to be able to look at that type of flower again. But the worst part, the thing that really makes her eyes blur and her breath catch, is the bow and quiver of arrows lying beside the flowers, the grips on her bow worn and used. Behind the casket, a matching bow is etched into the marble tombstone, above the words “ALLISON ARGENT: beloved daughter and friend.” Below her name is written the code she changed, the code she _wrote,_ and the closest Lydia comes to crying is when she reads _“Nous protégeons ceux qui ne peuvent pas se protéger eux-mêmes.”_

They don’t go to the reception afterwards; with the wake yesterday, it’s already been too much of people they don’t know telling them sorry, telling them she was too young, telling them that this was such a tragedy. She appreciates the sentiment, but Lydia is sick and tired of hearing it. She _knows_ it was a tragedy. They _know_ Allison was too young. It may be selfish, but Lydia doesn’t want to have to hear one more person condole her when they don’t even know the half of what Allison gave up for her friends.

Instead they stay at her grave, all five of them in a line— Scott is a mess, and Stiles clings to one of his hands, Kira hovering at his other side. Lydia is between Isaac and Stiles, but Stiles’s hand won’t find hers. Instead she stands by herself, her arms wrapped around herself, shuddering in the cold wind. She’s lost feeling in her fingertips, and she feels it’s fitting, because her heart is still numb to this entire day.

It seems like a lifetime before Melissa comes to get them— the sky is darker, and the wind is colder, biting at Lydia’s legs through her tights. “Scott,” she says quietly, and he turns to face her, eyes still red and _so_ heartbroken it almost makes Lydia start crying. “We have to go, sweetheart.”

“I should go, too,” Isaac says, voice hoarse, and Lydia thinks it’s the first time she’s heard him speak all day.

“Me too,” Kira adds quietly, and Lydia realizes, suddenly, her car’s not here— she drove with her mother, who is probably still at the reception.

“I can drive you home,” Stiles suddenly offers, and for the first time that day, he meets her eyes.

Lydia freezes for a second, looking into them at last. His face is still so pale, those dark shadows making him look gaunt, and the guilt and pain in his eyes is palpable. But they’re still the same eyes she knows so well, the same eyes she gets caught in when she allows herself to look into them too long.

“Okay,” Lydia agrees, and they leave with everyone else, walking in awkward silence back to the Jeep.

Neither of them say a word the entire way home, and Lydia _hates_ this. She wants to speak, but she doesn’t know what to say, so she remains quiet, hoping Stiles will figure it out and break the silence. She’d meant that when she said it— he’s the one who always figures it out. But somehow, he can’t seem to figure out what she wants him to do more than anything.

He parks the Jeep in her driveway, and they both sit there, the silence heavy around them. Stiles won’t look at her, focused on his hands, and he keeps playing with his fingers, moving them back and forth. His lips move slightly, but he says nothing, and it takes Lydia a moment to realize what he’s doing— he’s counting his fingers.

Her heart breaks all over again, watching Stiles silently try to figure out if this is real or if this is a dream. She wants to reach out, grab his hand, do something to comfort him, but he looks so fragile, and with the distance he’s put between them, she’s scared that he doesn’t want her there anymore.

Finally, Lydia breaks the silence.

“Thank you,” she says quietly, though her words are amplified by the silence hanging around them. Stiles looks up from his hands, meeting her eyes, and he looks so _tired._

“Of course,” he responds automatically, and when she goes to get out of the car, he follows her, walking her to the doorstep.

She’s about to say goodbye, about to turn the doorknob and go inside and lay in bed and feel numb some more, when Stiles murmurs, voice so low she can barely hear, “I’m sorry.”

Her heart contracts, and she turns to face him. His hands are shoved in the pockets of his dress slacks, his black shirt making his skin look paler, and it’s impossible to not see the lasting effect the nogitsune has had on him. His eyes are cast downwards, but when he finally does look up and meet hers, his are bloodshot and full of raw pain.

“What for?” she asks.

He almost laughs, huffing in mock amusement. “For this,” he says, swallowing. “All… today is because of me.”

“No, it’s not, Stiles,” Lydia insists. The nogitsune may have taken his form, but that doesn’t make him responsible for everything that monster had done to them.

“Yes, it is,” Stiles says, shaking his head. “Everything is my fault.” He meets her eyes again, her breath catching at the absolute anguish in his. “Allison, Aiden, everyone else…he tortured Scott. He captured _you._ Because I couldn’t fight him off.”

“Stiles, it’s not your fault,” she tries to say again, but he keeps going.

“I keep thinking this is going to be some sick dream,” he tells her, glancing down at his fingers. “That this is too fucked up to be real.” He pauses, scrubbing at his eye with the heel of his palm. “But this is real, and I… it’s all because of me.”

In that moment, Lydia wants nothing more than to lunge forward and grab him, pull him into her and comfort him, let him sob into her shoulder, figure out how to heal with him. The numbness inside is starting to ebb away, and her heart constricts, looking at the broken boy in front of her. She wants more than anything to help him, but she has no idea how. She’s so broken herself that she’s not sure she even _could_ help him.

“I should go,” Stiles mumbles, flexing his hands, still counting his fingers. “I… I’ll see you later.”

It’s then, right when he turns away, that the floodgates break, and Lydia’s numbness disappears.  

It all rushes back, grief and guilt and despair and _everything_ washing over her, squeezing the air out of her lungs, making her chest constrict and her head pound. Because her best friend is dead. Allison died trying to save her when she told everyone not to find her, and the only reason she’s now laying in a casket in a graveyard is because Lydia wasn’t strong enough to warn her. Now tears flood her eyes, and her vision blurs, distorting the image of Stiles’s retreating back.

_Stiles._

All Lydia really wants right now is for Stiles to turn around, to stop shutting her out and pushing her away. She wants him to come _back_ here because she almost lost him too and everything is different now— and she thinks she might be falling in love with him.

She just— wants Stiles, wants to be selfish, wants to be _his._

Wants him to _stay,_ here with her.

At the same time, she can’t bring herself to say anything— she knows she can’t be selfish; knows he has to heal too. Because Stiles is the one constant in her life, the one who seems to always be able to put her back together, and how can he save her if he can’t even save himself?

There’s some small part of her brain, the only part not overcome with the crushing loss of Allison, that wants to be brave. Wants to call him back and help him heal. She knows the timing is awful, but she wants to be with him. And she can’t help feeling that they could get through this together.

But Lydia’s never been particularly brave when it comes to her feelings. She’s too guarded and damaged to put herself out there, she knows. And after losing Allison, the fear of rejection is even more heightened. Stiles is all she has left. She can’t risk him right now, no matter how much her stupid heart wants her to.

So instead she remains silent, watching him walk back to his jeep.

It’s just as he’s reaching the jeep that she remembers her best friend again— alive, though, not dead, bleeding out in Scott’s arms— Allison had always been so brave. Had always fought with her heart. So Lydia opens her mouth.

“Stiles,” she calls, voice hoarse and desperate. _Don’t leave,_ she wants to say. _I need you more than you could imagine. Please, don’t leave me alone right now._

“Stay,” she manages to get out, but the wind howls, sweeping her words away, her voice too quiet to reach his ears. Lydia shivers, standing by her door under the iron sky, and she feels cold and small as Stiles climbs into the Jeep, her plea lost on him.


End file.
